Soylent Green is...dinner?

[Kaido]

I got my first box of Vite-Ramen (meal-replacement noodles & broth) in. 3 flavors:

1. Mushroom Shio
2. Garlic Pork
3. Soy Sauce Chicken

I've only tried the mushroom one so far. Macros:

* 27g protein
* 72g carb
* 12g fat

500 calories & 530mg sodium per pack. All you have to do is bring 2.5 cups of water to a boil, cook it for a couple minutes, and then add the various packets (seasoning packet, "noodtrient" packet, oil packet, and dehydrated veggie packet). You could probably speed up the process by using an electric kettle. Thoughts:

1. Tastes like store-brand soup. Pretty mellow, lots of room to expand flavor. Be sure to calibrate your expectations, re: Soylent.
2. Noodles remind me of gluten-free noodles. They're not as weird as some of the reviews I've read said. I have no problem with them.
3. Surprisingly filling. I didn't find Soylent super filling until I switched to Sated, which has a much higher fat content due to the MCT oil you blend in. So Vite-ramen is a nice low-effort meal.

I'll be trying each flavor individually, and then I'll try dressing each flavor up (with hardboiled eggs etc.), as I got a 9-pack (3 of each flavor). I'm not a huge ramen fan in general (I like pho tho, when it's cold out or when I'm sick), but I'll definitely be keeping a box of these in stock at all times as emergency food! They have a 10% off coupon on their website right now:

https://viteramen.com/

I have a really convenient veggie chopper that I will be using with this: (paging @Herr Kutz)

https://www.amazon.com/Chopper-Vege...ese-Onion-Chopper-Dicer-Kitchen/dp/B01HC7BNJA

Doing soft-boiled eggs is a piece of cake with sous-vide:

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/10/sous-vide-soft-boiled-eggs.html

Quick-pickled red onions would also be great in this:

https://www.rachelcooks.com/2017/06/12/how-to-pickle-red-onions-in-five-minutes/

I can see myself using Vite-Ramen with some veggies & eggs on a regular basis. I'll see how the pork & chicken flavors are this weekend!

 

[destrekor]

I'm glad you mentioned Sated. That got me to look into it - and I have no intention of buying their ready-made version. That said, it gave me a terrific idea for an ingredient list for a DIY blend. Remove the vitamin mix and it's pretty basic - readily available oils and dry ingredients, most of which I already have.

Gotta say though, considering the total sweetener blend, I'm super surprised Sated lists 10g of erythritol per serving. That seems like a significant amount - that's got to be super sweet. Benefit of them suggesting it be served cold is that would counteract the only significant downfall of erythritol: it has a significant cooling effect, much like an alcohol's evaporative cooling effect. I don't think erythritol has that evaporation aspect to it, just something that comes with that particular molecule. Definitely see the larger use of it over the apparently minuscule amount of stevia and monk fruit - both of which typically have some negative taste properties of their own.
That said, it depends on which specific molecules they use, like weed there's a number of chemicals that give rise to the overall sweetening properties of stevia; for example there's rebaudioside A (with a trademarked brand Rebiana representing Reb. A) which is most common, but there's practically an alphabet soup worth of companion molecules, to include Reb A through Reb M off the top of my head -- blends are important for Stevia otherwise it can be pretty off-putting if they focus only on the ones with the largest sweetener coefficient or whatever.

 

[Kaido]

I'm glad you mentioned Sated. That got me to look into it - and I have no intention of buying their ready-made version. That said, it gave me a terrific idea for an ingredient list for a DIY blend. Remove the vitamin mix and it's pretty basic - readily available oils and dry ingredients, most of which I already have.

Gotta say though, considering the total sweetener blend, I'm super surprised Sated lists 10g of erythritol per serving. That seems like a significant amount - that's got to be super sweet. Benefit of them suggesting it be served cold is that would counteract the only significant downfall of erythritol: it has a significant cooling effect, much like an alcohol's evaporative cooling effect. I don't think erythritol has that evaporation aspect to it, just something that comes with that particular molecule. Definitely see the larger use of it over the apparently minuscule amount of stevia and monk fruit - both of which typically have some negative taste properties of their own.
That said, it depends on which specific molecules they use, like weed there's a number of chemicals that give rise to the overall sweetening properties of stevia; for example there's rebaudioside A (with a trademarked brand Rebiana representing Reb. A) which is most common, but there's practically an alphabet soup worth of companion molecules, to include Reb A through Reb M off the top of my head -- blends are important for Stevia otherwise it can be pretty off-putting if they focus only on the ones with the largest sweetener coefficient or whatever.

Sated comes in sucralose-sweetened or naturally-sweetened (erythritol, monk fruit, and stevia blend). I usually detest sucralose, but Sated did a really good job balancing the flavor. I didn't care for the naturally-sweetened version, partly because it made my ears ring like an hour after drinking it (not sure if it was the erythritol or what). As far as the 10g of erythritol goes, keep in mind that that's only like 2 teaspoons per 12oz of water; a 12oz Sprite has something like 6 teaspoons of sugar, by comparison. The naturally-sweetened Sated is actually very mildly sweet (to my non-taster tongue, hardly sweet at all tbh) - way less sweet than bottled Vanilla Soylent.

As far as a DIY blend, you may want to check out Super Body Fuel first:

https://superbodyfuel.com/

Their plain Keto blend doesn't contain any sweeteners: (sample packs are available for $5)

https://superbodyfuel.com/shop/keto-fuel/

The vanilla Keto kind has vanilla & monkfruit extract for the sweetener. I ordered a box of sample flavors & blends from them that I'll be trying next week. Also curious to switch up the protein sources, which include brown rice protein & gluten-free oat flour from Super Body Fuel. Also, my local Whole Foods has gotten in a large variety of weird protein sources, such as pumpkin seed protein & sunflower seed protein. There's even watermelon seed protein coming out! Crazy stuff.

I still keep Soylent in my desk for an emergency meal, but right now I'm just blending up Sated as needed. I was stuck on a 4-day, low-sleep project for a client last week & lived on the stuff - super easy & felt great! I'm not low-carb by any means, but I do like to save my carb macros for bready stuff like baked goods!

 

[destrekor]

Sated comes in sucralose-sweetened or naturally-sweetened (erythritol, monk fruit, and stevia blend). I usually detest sucralose, but Sated did a really good job balancing the flavor. I didn't care for the naturally-sweetened version, partly because it made my ears ring like an hour after drinking it (not sure if it was the erythritol or what). As far as the 10g of erythritol goes, keep in mind that that's only like 2 teaspoons per 12oz of water; a 12oz Sprite has something like 6 teaspoons of sugar, by comparison. The naturally-sweetened Sated is actually very mildly sweet (to my non-taster tongue, hardly sweet at all tbh) - way less sweet than bottled Vanilla Soylent.

While it is less in grams than sugar, it is also FAR sweeter than a ratio like 1:3 would suggest. But it's a different kind of sweetness, which is why it is ideal to have other sweeteners.
But there's also an issue where you really only want to consume so much erythritol. It's not supposed to be nearly as bad as maltitol in regards to the potentially excessive [wet] flatulence and shits (as is true for most other sugar alcohols - xylitol is super great for oral health, don't overdue it though). They're "safe" even in over-consumption, but they have a laxative effect when consumed in excess, mainly because they behave like dietary fiber if they make it to the large intestine, often fermentable.

However I was actually thinking of the wrong sweetness comparison - I still have stevia in mind! I just looked it up to confirm, erythritol is only about 70% as sweet as sucrose. And it only has about 0.2 kcal per gram. Considering that both the monk fruit and stevia are listed at the very end of the ingredients, after all the vitamins (combined), fillers, and preservatives, it stands to reason that these are in very minute amounts relative to the volume. Combine that with what would be effectively be less sugar, it shouldn't actually be all that sweet come to think of it.

Oh and careful with the teaspoon to teaspoon conversion factor: they have different density and mass so don't expect mass measurements to be comparable in that regard. Also a factor is that the final consumer sweetener we would buy has a bulking agent to make measurement easier, often polysaccharides such as starch, or oligosaccharides -- which often count as dietary fiber.

Aren't sweeteners fun?!

 

[Linux23]

https://futurism.com/the-byte/soylent-ramen-packet-nutrient

 

[destrekor]

https://futurism.com/the-byte/soylent-ramen-packet-nutrient

Sounds like something I'd gladly try. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like they have any plans to bring it Stateside yet.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I mix my soylent green with Ginger root!!

 

[Kaido]

Soylent has a new flavor available - Mint Chocolate!

Soylent Drink Mint Chocolate

Minty chocolate deliciousness. Our brand new flavor is packed with 400 kcal, 26 vitamins, and minerals, and 20g of plant-based protein. Shop now!

soylent.com

Review:

1. If you like Andes candies, you'll like this
2. It basically tastes like if the Dollar Store knocked off Andes candies & turned it into a hot chocolate mix (but then you drank it cold)
3. If you like the regular cocoa Soylent flavor & also like mint, then you'll like this
4. It's not strongly minty, more like if you were to swirl a peppermint stick into hot chocolate kind of minty. More than a hint of mint, but not like a full-on, in-your-face minty flavor.
5. I actually really like it; it's enjoyable in a mellow sort of way
6. Standard macros (20g protein, 37g carbs, 21g fats)

Generally if I'm going to do Soylent, I use a chilled chocolate RTD bottle & use my motorized Promixx blender bottle (not cheap, but soooooo nice to have an on-the-go method for eliminating protein powder clumps!) to mix in a scoop or two of Optimum vanilla ice cream whey protein powder (24g per scoop). Makes it taste pretty dang close to Nesquick, actually! I'll have to try that trick with the mint cocoa to see how it tastes.

Although if I'm doing a liquid meal replacement, I usually just use sucralose-sweetened (I tend not to like sucralose at all, but they did a pretty decent job of balancing the sweet flavor here) vanilla Sated, as I like the flavor better. I keep a bag of that in my pantry. I'll definitely be keeping a box of the cocoa mint Soylent in my pantry as well! Again, it's a pretty mellow (not strong) flavor, but if you like chocolate-mint, then this is a nice change of pace from the standard chocolate Soylent (granted, you could probably just make it yourself with a drop of mint extract in the cocoa Soylent, haha!).

 

[Kaido]

Soylent-style Burger announced:

ManaBurger™ | Food for a Better Life

A nutritionally complete, plant-based alternative to the traditional beef burger.

drinkmana.com

• Coming summer 2020
• $5 per patty
• Nutritionally complete (14 vitamins, 24 minerals)

Specs:

• 300 calories
• 20 grams of Protein
• 9 grams of Carbs
• 22 grams of Fat

Free of:

• Gluten
• Soy
• Nuts
• GMO's
• Animal products

 

[Kaido]

I tried Banana Soylent. Man. Nope. Not for me lol. Premier Protein's banana shake has ruined me (my favorite flavor from them).

Banana Meal Replacement Shake | Soylent - Soylent

Our delicious banana-flavored shake is a ready-to-drink meal. Each provides 20g of plant-based protein along with 39 essential nutrients.

soylent.com

Although maybe I got a bad bottle, because on reddit people are saying it's actually too sweet & candy-like. Mine was nas-tay:

https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/ktuhp4

 

[Kaido]

They have a couple new products. Complete Protein has zero sugar with more protein (30g) & BCAA's & whatnot:

Chocolate High Protein Shake | Plant-Based | Soylent - Soylent

Our new plant-based, high protein nutrition shake delivers an impressive 30g of complete plant-based protein in just 11oz.

soylent.com

They also have a caffeinated energy drink version with 15g protein:

Chocolate Energy Shake | Soylent - Soylent

Complete Energy Chocolate energizes while also giving you full nutrition. Formulated with vitamin B, caffeine, L-theanine, L-tyrosine, alpha-GPC, and 15g of plant-based protein.

soylent.com

I'm not a caffeine person, but I'll give the protein-boosted drink a try next order!

 

[Captante]

Soylent-style Burger announced:

View attachment 14159

 

[Kaido]

Alternatively, you could just make the patty out of 80/20 ground beef, get double the protein, zero carbs, and pop a vitamin pill to get the same effect lol